In this Book
- The Fire: Collected Essays of Robin Blaser
- Book
- 2006
- Published by: University of California Press
summary
Spanning four decades of meditation on the avant-garde in poetry, art, and philosophy, the essays collected in The Fire reveal Robin Blaser's strikingly fresh perspective on "New American" poets, deconstructive philosophies, current events, and the state of humanities now. The essays, gathered in one volume for the first time, include commentaries on Jack Spicer, Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Mary Butts, George Bowering, Louis Dudek, Christos Dikeakos, and J. S. Bach.
Blaser emerged from the "Berkeley Renaissance" of the 1940s and 1950s having studied under legendary medieval scholar Ernst Kantorowicz and having been a major participant in the burgeoning literary scene. His response to the cultural and political events of his time has been to construct a poetic voice that offers a singular perspective on a shareable world—and to pose that voice alongside others as a source of countermemory and potential agency. Conceived as conversations, these essays brilliantly reflect that ethos as they re-read the cultural events of the past fifty years.
Blaser emerged from the "Berkeley Renaissance" of the 1940s and 1950s having studied under legendary medieval scholar Ernst Kantorowicz and having been a major participant in the burgeoning literary scene. His response to the cultural and political events of his time has been to construct a poetic voice that offers a singular perspective on a shareable world—and to pose that voice alongside others as a source of countermemory and potential agency. Conceived as conversations, these essays brilliantly reflect that ethos as they re-read the cultural events of the past fifty years.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Title Page, Copyright
- pp. i-viii
- Illustrations
- pp. xi-xii
- PART I: Poetics
- The Stadium of the Mirror
- pp. 26-37
- Poetry and Positivisms
- pp. 38-63
- The Recovery of the Public World
- pp. 64-86
- Among Afterthoughts on This Occasion
- pp. 87-95
- The Irreparable
- pp. 98-110
- PART II: Commentaries
- The Practice of Outside
- pp. 113-163
- Imaginary Letters by Mary Butts: Afterword
- pp. 164-176
- George Bowering’s Plain Song
- pp. 177-195
- The Violets
- pp. 196-228
- “Mind Canaries”
- pp. 229-252
- “My Vocabulary Did This to Me”
- pp. 253-261
- The “Elf”of It
- pp. 283-298
- Preface to the Early Poems of Robert Duncan
- pp. 299-304
- Here Lies the Woodpecker Who Was Zeus”
- pp. 305-349
- Bach’s Belief
- pp. 350-369
- Chronology
- pp. 401-410
- Editor's Notes
- pp. 411-456
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
- pp. 457-480
- Acknowledgments of Permissions
- pp. 481-486
Additional Information
ISBN
9780520938854
Related ISBN(s)
9780520245112
MARC Record
OCLC
607781656
Pages
535
Launched on MUSE
2014-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No